Beating Taliban only half the battle in Marjah

As troops gain ground, Afghans wary of NATO promises

Feb. 18, 2010 12:00 AMAssociated Press

MARJAH, Afghanistan - The Taliban's flag no longer flies over villages across this militant stronghold. Afghan and NATO troops have replaced it with Afghanistan's official green-and-red banner, which they promise heralds new schools and clinics and good governance.

But residents have heard that before, and for many, Taliban rule hasn't been all that bad. Plenty of Afghans have made a living off the opium trade, which also funds the insurgency. While some residents greet NATO forces with tea, others just want the troops to clear their streets of explosives and leave.

No one here needs liberating, they say.

"The Taliban didn't create any problems for people. Every Thursday, there was a court session, and if someone had a problem, he would go in front of the Taliban mullah who was the judge," said Samad Khan, a 55-year-old poppy farmer in the village of Saipo on the outskirts of Marjah. The Islamist militant group levied a 10 percent yearly tax on his poppy crop and let him be.

Now, Khan said, he's worried that the assault, which began Saturday, is putting his family in danger.

"I'm afraid for my children, for my village, because the fighting is increasing," he said.

He is looking for a way to flee to the nearby provincial capital of Lashkar Gah but said he is scared to pick his way through the explosive-laced fields to get there. The Taliban planted countless bombs in the area in preparation for the U.S.-led attack.

NATO officials say they are confident that once the 15,000-strong military force secures the area, troops can win the population over by providing both dependable security and government services.

Plans already have been drawn up to build schools, repair roads and install well-regarded government officials.

But that means NATO and the Afghan government have to make good on pledges to stay and make sure the government works. Promises have gone unfulfilled before.

In March, about 700 British troops invaded Marjah in an operation they hailed then as a dramatic success.

They declared the town back in government hands after a three-day assault.

Afghan district officials quickly started building bridges, repairing clinics and roads and clearing ditches, NATO said at the time. But without enough troops to truly hold the area, Taliban fighters slipped back in. Two months later, NATO officials were again describing Marjah as a Taliban-command node.

After NATO and Afghan troops took control of Qari Sahib village outside Marjah on Sunday, they tried to hold a meeting with local elders about the government services they'd be bringing. But most of the elders ignored the speeches, laughing and talking to one another throughout, according to an Associated Press reporter at the meeting.

The villagers seemed indifferent to the changing of the guard, though it had been dubbed a liberation. A Taliban flag was still waving in Qari Sahib village a day after it was reclaimed by the government. Afghan military officials finally changed it to an Afghan flag on Monday.

Inside Marjah, the poppy business boomed under the Taliban. Nearly every house in the north of the city has a plot of poppies growing in the yard.

Sharecropper Mohammed Khan said the Taliban didn't use draconian methods such as public executions and limb amputations to impose their reign in Marjah as they did in Kabul and other parts of the country when they ruled most of Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

"Honestly, they didn't bother us. They mostly just came and went," Khan, a rough-faced 55-year-old with a long beard, said as Marines searched his neighborhood of northern Marjah.